Will there be an X at FOSDEM2007?

[Luc Verhaegen]

The FOSDEM organisers are really getting up to steam now for the 
upcoming event, and they are now filling in the roster for their 
DevRooms or Developers Rooms. And they are wondering if we'd want one 
again this year.

For those who weren't there last year or any of the previous year:
FOSDEM is one of the largest general Free and Open Source developers 
meetings in Europe. It's always held at the end of february, at the 
free university of brussels. The main aulas are used to hold talks that 
interest the general public, but next to that a lot of aulas are being 
used for project or topic specific developers rooms. It's always a huge 
success, and the network, expanded and improved each year, is 
traditionally overloaded :)

This year, FOSDEM will take place on 24-25 February, saturday and sunday 
again.

In the turmoil of the upcoming board election, this is rather 
unfortunate timing, as it is impossible to get a solid backing from 
the board right now. But i do need to give Pascal Bleser (FOSDEM) an 
answer about the DevRoom ASAP.

Will we take a DevRoom this year or will some other free/open source 
software project get it?

At FROSCON, we had a devroom as well, and it was only egbert and me 
there. FROSCON was a first time event, with lots of excess capacity, so 
this was ok; but we might want to look into making that our summers .eu 
developer meeting or something, as it was really nice.

2 people turning up for FOSDEM will not be ok, as there are plenty of 
worthwhile projects that get refused each year.

Last year the following people visited the X.org devroom: Matthieu 
Herrb, Daniel Stone, Egbert Eich, Matthies Hopf, Stephane Marchésin, 
Jerome Glisse, Keith Packard, Lars Knoll, Zack Rusin, Stuart Kreitman, 
Jay Hobson, Michel Daenzer, Roland Mainz, Olaf Buddenhagen, Amaury 
Jacquot. This is just off the top off my head, so I've probably 
overlooked a few people here.

A quick poll on irc just now (it's sunday evening, not many are around 
right now) revealed that Jerome Glisse, Stephane Marchesin and Daniel 
Stone are very much interested to come to the 2007 event.

The actual event is still 117days away, so this is not about getting 
a solid and definitive attendants list. This is also not a call for 
funding (yet :p). It's also too early to talk about a Hothouse. I just 
would like to know whether there will be enough interest to justify 
taking up a DevRoom at FOSDEM this year.

So if you're interested in coming to Brussels on the weekend of the 24th 
and 25th of February, then please speak up.

Luc Verhaegen.